Broken
by Bog-Burgling Camicazi
Summary: When Hiccup goes into the woods on his own, something terrible happens. Found hours later, bruised and battered and absolutely not the same. Recovery isn't easy, but it's vital for everyone, and as much as Hiccup wants to deny it, no one is made of stone.
1. Mistakes Made

**When Hiccup goes into the woods on his own, something terrible happens. Found hours later, bruised and battered and absolutely not the same. Recovery isn't easy, but it's vital for everyone, and as much as Hiccup wants to deny it, no one is made of stone. **

**Well, it's definitely angstier than my usual stuff. I'm actually incredibly excited for this. I don't know if this story has an actual plot, it might just end when it ends, but I hope you enjoy anyway. Also, side note, I imagine this to take place a few months before HTTYD2, but I guess it doesn't matter. **

It wasn't a terrible day to begin with. There was no foreshadowing of what would become of him in a few hours, or any ominous gut feelings. Maybe that would've helped. Maybe it would have kept him locked up in his room all day. But there wasn't.

He woke up happy like most mornings. Or, at lest as happy as you can be at the crack of dawn. So he was _maybe_ a little grumpy, but nothing out of the ordinary. He ate breakfast with Toothless like everyday. His father had gotten up even earlier than him to do his chiefly duties (Hiccup still didn't understand how he did that) and wouldn't be returning until the late evening. That spared Hiccup of the "You'll be chief soon, son" lecture for most of the hours of the day, provided he did have an unexpected run in with Stoick later. He usually made sure that didn't happen at absolutely all costs.

Ready for the day, Hiccup was looking everywhere for Toothless' saddle. The dragon had taken to sleeping while Hiccup ate breakfast (useless reptile), and Hiccup decided it was in everyone's best interest that he stay that way.

"Must've left it in the forest," he muttered to himself. Kicking himself mentally for being so forgetful, he took a second to wonder whether it would be a good idea to wake the dragon so he would have some company. "I can do it myself," he decided.

He left quietly and took off in a sprint towards the forest. "Saddle, saddle, saddle…" He mumbled absentmindedly.

He kicked a couple pebbles over in his frustration. _Where did I leave that damn saddle?_

He kicked over some more rocks and slumped against a boulder. He decided to brainstorm.

In the background he heard twigs snap. _Is that Astrid_? He started toget up in order to check, but as soon as he got he was pushed back down.

"Hey!" Hey yelled. It's probably Snotlout or something. He looked up and realized it wasn't, it wasn't Snotlout, or the twins, or anyone he knew, and he was definetly not someone from Berk. _Oh no, oh no, oh no, this can't be good. _

"Hey! I found him!" The man above him called. _There's more, there's more, of course there's more of them! _

Another one appeared in front of him from seemingly no where, and soon, he was surrounded. "Good work, men," the one in front of him sadisically grinned. "We don't even need to sneak into the village." He leaned towards Hiccup and in an eerily quiet tone, said,"You made this too easy."

Hiccup gulped. _Brave, brave, brave, be brave. "_So, what, you're gonna kidnap me now?" _No! No, don't say dumb things like that! They might actually kidnap you now you moron! _

The men chuckled and their leader said, "Oh no, absolutely not. Kidnapping you would be a handful. More work than it's worth. We can weaken Berk in different ways."

"Weaken… Berk?" Hiccup didn't understand. What did they mean? Were they planning on going into war? And how would they weaken Berk through Hiccup? He wasn't even chief yet.

"I've already told you too much. We don't need you ruining our plans by tattling." _Tattling_? What was he, five? He leaned in again. "Now, you might want to close you're eyes for this."

Close his… _what_?

Before he could comprehend anything, he felt a sharp pain in his side. "Ah!" He cried. He clutched his side, but the pain started coming from everywhere. There wasn't one part of his body that didn't hurt. He definetly didn't have enough hands.

He couldn't even tell what was happening, it was all so fast. His blood on his skin was warm but he was cold inside. He didn't feel like either. All he could feel was pain. Sharp, stinging pain from every angle.

He felt like throwing up after all the kicks to his stomach, and he felt his tears over his face, stinging every bruise on the way down. Even his own body was trying to hurt him.

He was on his left side, his hands wrapped around his stomach. _Pain… stop._

He couldn't groan or scream, he was too worn out, but they didn't care. It went on and on. He didn't try to listen, but he thought he heard laughing. He didn't even know who was laughing. It could be the men, it could've been his dad, or his friends. He couldn't tell the difference. Maybe he was hallucinating. Maybe he was dead.

_Dead_. The thought hadn't even occurred to him. He could _die_. They could kill him. That would definetly serve their purpose. It would weaken Berk. He realized this, but lacked a reaction. There was no happy, scared, or sad. He was a feeling less void. That was about to die.

_This is it. _

**_Darkness_****. **

**Ah, what a relief. I had way too much fun writing this. Yeah, yeah, I'm a monster, poor Hic and all that. There will be a next chapter, so stick around for that!**


	2. Not Okay

**Last chapter was easy. This chapter? Not so much… God. Literally I have no idea how to go about this. I could… uh… okay. Yeah. **

The next time Hiccup woke up, he was _definetly _not in the forest. His eyelids felt too heavy to lift them, so he didn't even try. He could hear everything around him, not that there was a lot to hear around him.

Wherever he was, a Toothless was there too. He could hear him pacing around the room, with his tail dragging behind him.

Astrid was here too. He could hear her voice from somewhere, but it was muffled and far away. His father's voice was the same. Maybe they were talking to each other. Maybe they were talking to themselves. He had never wished more in his entire life that they had been talking to him.

He didn't feel okay. He was alone. Toothless was here, but he could tell that he really wasn't. Just from the sound of the dragon's footsteps he could tell that he was in his own little world.

Suddenly, Hiccup heard laughter. Was it Toothless? Was it Astrid or Stoick? Was it… the men? It sounded like the same laughter he heard in the woods. When it was happening.

Suddenly Hiccup found it hard to breathe. Something welled up in his chest. He felt pain and weakness and panic. _I'm not okay, I'm not okay, I'm not okay. _

Before he knew it, it was over. He could breathe again. More than anything he wanted to open his eyes and see Astrid and Toothles again. He wanted to see his dad and Gobber, and heck, even Snotlout, Fishlegs, and the twins. But his eyes wouldn't open, and he felt even emptier than before.

• • •

_Where am I?_

His room. He was _in _his room! A smile tugged at his lips as he realized he wasn't in the woods, and he wasn't kidnapped.

Then, it all went away.

Bandages.

Bruises.

Blood.

It hurt to move. It hurt to do anything. Damn it, he couldn't even turn his head! He had never felt weaker in his entire life. He couldn't figure out how to cope. His mind was foggy and he couldn't think.

"Hiccup?" _Astrid. _His head turned, and for a second, he forgot the pain. But then it it stung.

He inhaled sharply and then did his best to gather his thoughts. He didn't want her to think their was something wrong with him. Beyond his physical injuries, anyway.

He wanted to hear her say something again. He wanted her to talk to him like everything was the way it was. But it wasn't. Because if Hiccup wanted Astrid to talk to him, he'd have to talk back to Astrid.

He didn't know what to _say_. He didn't even know what kind of gesture to make. Smile? That would be weird. Wave? She was _right there, _waving would make look like an idiot.

He didn't understand much about what he was feeling anymore (is Astrid being here good, or did it make him feel worse?), but he did understand that the emptiness wasn't going away until he made it go away. He'd have to fix himself.

"Hi, Astrid." _Odin,_was that his voice? It sounded raw and more like a croak than actual words. Oh man, where was he supposed to go from there?

She gave him a half-smile. He couldn't tell if she was disappointed and trying to not let it show, or happy but too worried to make a whole smile. She sat in a chair next to him and didn't say anything for a while.

For a moment, he was worried she would punch him, but he trusted that she knew better.

"Hiccup… what happened out there?" She asked this carefully, like she was tiptoeing around a sleeping dragon. Like she was of afraid of doing something wrong.

He opened his mouth to say something, but he was forced to close it. The memories flooded his mind at such an alarming rate he cringed.

"What happened? Are you hurt?" Astrid asked suddenly.

Why would she assume he was hurt? Did she think he was weak? No, no, he was being crazy. She knew he was… what? Strong? He wasn't, he didn't think so, but that didn't make him weak, right? She knew that, he thought, anyway.

"Hiccup? Are you okay?" She started to sound worried, not that she wasn't in the first place. It occurred to him that he hadn't answered one of her questions.

"I-I'm fine," he finally replied.

She threw him a look of incredible skepticism, but dropped it. She's seen him hurt enough times to know she'd have read in between the lines. He could see her trying to decide what to say next, and knowing she shouldn't repeat any of her past questions. She looked down at her hands sadly and said, "I was worried about you."

He figured that much.

His eyes started to wander around the room, finally landing on Toothless. Hiccup hadn't even realized the dragon was there. Usually he'd be the first thing he saw after one of these episodes, and now that things were different, he started to miss that.

Hiccup was looking at him, but Toothless wasn't. He was sitting in the corner farthest from Hiccup and was staring at the wood floor.

_Why was he doing that? Did he not want to see me? _

"He's been like that since we found you," He heard.

"Like… what?" He asked, despite having a pretty good idea.

"Sad, mostly. He'll either sit in that corner or just pace around your room. He won't look at you either. I think he feels guilty he wasn't with you when it happened."

Hiccup's eyes started to sting with tears. He blinked furiously to try get them to go back, but his attempts were futile.

He could feel Astrid's hands running through his hair.

The tears started to come out harder and faster, and despite everything, he was still embarrassed about crying. Hiccup fought the pain so he could turn on his side and did his best to bury his head in his pillow. He closed his eyes, and stopped trying to keep the tears in.

_Definetly not okay. _

**Poor Hiccup, amirite? Okay so, I don't even know if Hiccup **_**has **_**pillow, but I'm going to give him one. He deserves that much, don't you think? Gosh, I was having fun writing this, **_**and **_**the same time I felt like crying. I hope you enjoyed it, though. **


	3. War

**A heads up real quick, the first part of this is Astrid's point of view of the very last part of last chapter and the rest is the same as it's been for the past two chapters, Hiccup's point of view. **

Astrid was getting increasingly worried about Hiccup. She wished he wasn't so hard to read, and that he would just _tell _her how he felt, but he wouldn't. At first she thoght it was some kind of trust issue, but later she realized it was because he didn't want to appear weak. Why he still thought that was a problem she didn't think she would ever understand, but in time she learned to work around it.

She still had many questions burning in her mind, too many of which she knew he wouldn't answer. Still, she ignored her better judgment to ask him what happened.

His eyes shut and he cringed. He was probably having a flashback, and it was intense. She felt incredibly guilty for triggering it and decided he would tell when he was ready. Still, she felt like she was obligated to ask if he was hurt. He didn't seem to like that question, and instead she asked if he was okay.

Stuttering, he replied fine. His voice was shaky, and she knew for a fact that he was not fine.

She told him she was worried about him, specifically choosing the word "_was"_.

Astrid was looking down, and when she looked back up, Hiccup was no longer looking at her. His eyes were fixed on the far corner of the room, where Toothless was sitting. She couldn't read Hiccup's facial expression well, but he definitely didn't look happy.

"He's been like that since we found you," Astrid decided to say.

"Like… what?" Hiccup asked.

She didn't know what to say that wouldn't make him feel worse than he did, so she decided to go with the truth. While explaining, she watched his mouth curl downwards. She didn't want to do this to him, but he asked. She told him Toothless wouldn't look at him and watched as the tears welled up in his eyes.

He was blinking rapidly to keep them back. At that moment, Astrid had a fierce need to touch him. She needed to feel him under her hands, as if he would disappear if she didn't.

She opted to run her hands through his hair, trying her best to be comforting. His normally soft hair felt crusty with the blood no one bothered to wash out. A lump formed in her throat as Hiccup started to whimper.

His head was now buried his head in his pillow. Under his blanket, she could see his body shake with sobs, and he wasn't trying to be quiet anymore. Along with her sadness, anger bubbled inside of her as she thought about _who _exactly made all this happen. She didn't want to hurt Hiccup in so she tried best to suppress it. Still, her fingers started to curl at the thought, and her nails just barely dug into Hiccup's scalp. She decided the best thing for her to do would be to leave.

• • •

Hiccup awoke hours later, his throat still feeling kind of raw from crying. He didn't really remember falling asleep, but he still felt a lot better. Maybe crying made him feel better, like some kind of relief.

His eyes wandered to the black dragon that had moved to his bedside. Toothless could've move while Hiccup was crying so hard he couldn't pay attention to anything else, or maybe while he was asleep. Either way, the most the dragon must've wanted was to be close to Hiccup, because he was as fast asleep as Hiccup was minutes before.

Watching the dragon sleep worried Hiccup. He knew it was dumb, but the the last time he watched Toothless sleep, he was attacked just moments later. There really wasn't any correlation between Toothless sleeping and bad things happening to him, but Hiccup still didn't feel good about it.

He reached out to stroke the scales and felt the dragon tense up. His hand jerked back. There really wasn't really any real reason, he was just a little surprised.

He was out of tears. No more crying for a while. It was a good thing, he didn't quite like the the idea of crying, especially if he knew that as soon as anyone heard so much as a whimper someone would come rushing up.

He wrapped himself tight in his blanket. He closed his eyes for a second, not sure what he wanted, but if it was sleep he was out of luck. When his eyes were open again, they landed on his dad who had somehow climbed the stairs without making a sound.

"Hey, dad."

Hiccup really wasn't in the mood for talking. He wouldn't entirely mind being talked to, but using his voice really didn't sound all that appealing at the moment.

"How're you feeling?"

Hiccup shrugged. It hurt.

He watched Stoick's concerned face get even _more _concerned. "Dad, I'm fine."

"Are you sure?"

"_Yes_, I'm sure," he insisted.

"Alright, I was just worried about you." Stoick said.

Wasn't everyone?

Before he could stop himself, his mind wandered into a dark place. It was a place that contained never ending memories of the morning it happened and voices laughing at him and telling him he was weak. That there wasn't a person in the world that cared for him.

But that couldn't be true. There was his dad, standing next to him and looking like his face was permanently had a worried look molded on. There was Astrid who looked like she was was about to cry yesterday. There was Toothless. Toothless didn't help much. He still cared, though. Probably.

"Dad?" Hiccup asked. "Did you notice anything different about Toothless? While I was asleep?"

Astrid told him more than enough when she was here, but maybe his dad saw something else. He assumed he was here more often than Astrid.

His dad looked at him sadly. He didn't want to here this. "I'm sorry, Hiccup."

Hiccup's eyes avoided Stoick's. "Yeah." He closed his eyes and pretended to go to sleep. He didn't want to speak or be spoken to.

• • •

"Bud? Buddy?"

Hiccup had been trying for hours.

Hiccup couldn't stand this. It was breaking him. _Why wouldn't Toothless even look at him? _

He had repeated "I forgive you" for almost forty minutes straight, and all that did was move Toothless back to the far side of the room. He buried himself in his covers and waited for movement. After twenty minutes, he heard it, but it wasn't Toothless.

"Hiccup?"

It was Astrid. It wasn't that he didn't want to see her, it was more that he wanted to see Toothless more.

He peaked out of his blanket to look at Astrid, but his gaze was swept away to Toothless. Hiccup didn't know if it was that she didn't notice, or that she chose to ignore it, but she didn't try fight for Hiccup's attention.

Instead she did exactly what Hiccup wanted. She talked to him.

"We've been having some dragon problems. It's kind of hard without you, you know. I've been trying, but it's not the same," she told him.

Hiccup didn't give any indication that he was listening, but Astrid knew he was.

"Are you feeling any better?"

Hiccup stopped looking at Toothless and moved his eyes back to Astrid.

"I'm, uh, fine," he lied. He was feeling _awful. _She didn't need to know that.

He didn't answer the question, but he wouldn't have done that too truthfully either. He was fed up with answering questions, he wanted to _listen. _Or at the very least, hear. "Astrid? Could you just talk to me? No questions, just talk."

Astrid looked a little confused, but agreed anyway. He didn't catch a word she said, but he could hear her voice, and that's all he wanted.

He watched Toothless while Astrid talked. He was still hurt that his _best friend _wouldn't even look at him, but he knew it wasn't his own fault. Probably.

He heard Astrid's voice die down. He looked over at her to see why she stopped talking.

"What happened," he shrugged. Or, at least, would've, if he could move his stupid shoulders.

"Do you want to talk about it?" Quickly, she added, "Not that you have to, though."

"I don't… really want to." Remembering was a punishment. The experience was literal hell, and sharing his moments of weakness and utter pain wasn't something he'd rather do.

However, he did realize there were some things that were said by the men. Things his father should definetly know. He vividly remembered the entire experience. Hiccup was almost sure that they were preparing for war, and attacking the scrawny heir was a warning.

War was coming. That was hard to swallow.

**I didn't know how to end this so there you go. Also, I think this is just **_**slightly **_**fits in to the AU category since Hiccup would probably have a better understanding of war in the second movie. Idk what do I know. **


End file.
